Now we know much more and are prepared to learn, act and lead the way in making the Catholic Church the safest possible place for children

Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor

Society had been demoralised, with people seeking transient happiness in alcohol, drugs and pornography, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor continued.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, said Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor's comments echoed his own views.

He said there were many challenges facing the church but equally many opportunities too.

The remarks come against a background of a steady decline in attendance at mass and a worsening shortage of priests.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, who is leader of 4.1 million Catholics in England and Wales, also warned against "apathy" and "negligence" in cases of child abuse.

"We must recognise the depth and the extent of the damage done to the Church and its mission in these cases," he said.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor said priests, and especially bishops, had not been sufficiently aware of the "insidious" and "pathological" nature of child abuse or treated all allegations seriously enough.

But he added: "Now we know much more and are prepared to learn, act and lead the way in making the Catholic Church the safest possible place for children."

Paedophile priest

Between 1995 and 1999, 21 of the 5,600 Catholic priests in England and Wales were convicted of offences against children.

In July, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor himself acknowledged he had made a mistake after it emerged that as Bishop of Arundel and Brighton he appointed a paedophile priest as chaplain to the Gatwick Airport chapel despite concerns about his behaviour.

Father Michael Hill, who was released from prison last autumn, served three and a half years of a five-year sentence imposed in 1997 for nine sex attacks.

They included one on a boy with learning difficulties who he had met at the chapel.

Dr David Voas, a demographer at the University of Sheffield, said the Church of England was losing about a million members every five years as people who were baptised died without being replaced.

He said: "Religion is being passed down like a recessive gene, it does not generally appear in the new generation unless the parents match.

"With this pattern of transmission, further erosion in church affiliation is almost inevitable."